Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Luckily, the Grateful Dead has arranged for lights, so it also looks like this.

A lot of the sets and songs began with loosey-goosey jams to ease their way into the tune; this is because otherwise, they would have had to rehearse.

Once you get the song rolling, you can fake your way through it.

Intros and endings need a run-through.

Phil Song.

Okay, we have been dancing around a point and I will here resort to honest reportage.

When Phil started singing Bird Song, a man in our row cried, “Oh, not Bird Song!” as if his favorite child had been trampled by the cow.

This fellow was prepared to hear a China Phil Sunflower or a Ramble On Phil, but Phil Song staggered him; he was not prepared for it.

Y’know, if these guys got three or four tours under their belt, they’d be tight.

Dead, but tight.

Top o’ the World, Ma: Treblinka, who is sending the same spacey, large-intervalled cascades of notes over the jam’s bow.

“The jam is taking on water, captain!”

“I’m sorry: who’s the captain? At least two guys on this stage who look like they hire our their schooners to tourists.”

No: I was mistaken: Mickey has not changed shirts.

I repeat: Mickey is wearing the same, non-Dead, shirt as the first set.

Jeff Chimenti seems to have to fuck with his own gear between songs.

Does Jeff Chimenti not get a Benjy?

Everybody else got a Benjy, so that sucks if Jeff Chimenti is just kinda floating around by himself and carrying things.

Temporary though his Grateful Deadness was, he was fully-carded and bonded as a Grateful Dead.

Grateful Deads get Benjys.

Tropicana and Bruce are now singing Golden Road, which is a good rocker, and on the close-up, Bruce looks adorable.

He is twinkly-eyed and having a blast, but he is also clearly reading the lyrics from a pad in front of him.

Like this was Megalomaniacal Karaoke Night at a Bond villain’s place.

There are four Grateful Deads singing this little coda bit and if you asked them what the exact words to the song were, you would get four different answers.

Do not get me wrong: they all pretty much know the words.

Each of them honestly believes that his is the correct version.

Another thing ten minutes of rehearsal could have nipped in the bud.

Although in the several tours worth of the disco version of Dancin’ in the Streets, they never all knew the same words, either.

This might be an inbred trait.

Top o’ the World, Ma: Jeff Chimenti, who is straining like a stallion with the smell a mare in his nose.

Jeff Chimenti has a prettier mane than any horse, though.

Garcia always had long hair, and Bobby would go back and forth, but other than that, the Dead wasn’t a longhair band.

Wait.

Brent.

I abandon my thesis.

Lost Sailor now and Bobby is acting shit out for some reason and I hit the bathroom and beer stand.

(Sorry, Bobby.)

I got a bit lost, and might have been hit on: it was an odd bathroom and beer stand run.

Except right now all I want to do is watch the Dead TV show instead of being back in the stadium; there is weirdly little emotional resonance between the event and the show on the screen and I cannot put myself back in Section 226, Row 7, Seat 6.

It’s just TV, and not even particularly good TV by the standards of the medium.

But apparently this is how it happened.

Can’t argue with it, no room to slide around it: small triumphs and dragging lags and mistimed close-ups.

I seem to recall having fun.

But I’ve now locked myself into not re-experiencing the show, as one can do with closed eyes and audio, but experiencing for the first time something vaguely related but of a completely different genus.

Like how horses and cows kinda look alike, but really have zip to do with one another.

On the upside: I totally did this to myself.

On the upperside: I threw a little tantrum while I did it.

Yay, me.

Bobby’s hair and beard looks very fluffy.

Bobby looks like this a little:

Who’s a good Bobby? Who is?

When Bobby saing the bit about how he’s still walking and sure that he can dance, he almost broke down; he tried to cover it up, but I saw it.

Jeff Chimenti has been allowed to sing backing vocals on Saint and it makes me sad Jeff Chimenti was not allowed to sing more.

That’s fuckin’ Dead hipster, man: a t-shirt with Let Jeff Sing on it.

If you wore that shirt, you should get a medal and a kick to the shin.

There was a moment in Saint, at the end, when Bobby told us to go for it: was it my moment?

I had been promised a transcendent moment, you see.

If it was, it was gone now – replaced by the television’s version.

TV doesn’t do transcendent moments.

Lot of close-ups of fingers.

Not as much transcendence.

Bruce is singing West LA Fadeaway and fucking that shit up; if you don’t like West LA Fadeaway, then I’ll never be able to figure you out.

Disliking this song is alien to me; I spit it from my mouth like tepid water; get the fuck out of here with your foolishness.

Later on, I called this song West L Trey Trey-da-Trey and my companions neither struck me with cause nor left me (in a tunnel we somehow had wandered into) to be eaten by the Death Bunnies of Chicagoland.

But, now I don’t feel friendship or excitement or joy: just watching TV.

All television that’s not Archer can suck my ass.

Ooh, I forgot they played Foolish Heart.

I love me some Foolish Heart.

I love it more played faster than this.

We quickly reach a point of diminishing returns, obviously: I would not love a Foolish Heart played at speed-metal tempos.

Now, I want to hear that.

With the growly, Cookie Monster vocals.

Let’s take this bright and shiny Triskadekaphobia solo to note Bobby’s jeans and remind ourselves that they “were advertised and sold as a lengthy short.”

Sometimes Jeff Chimenti will be playing one ridiculously heavy and finicky keyboard over here and then all of a sudden he HAS TO PLAY THAT ONE THERE.

It’s gotten to the point in the night where everything becomes waaaaaaaay too funny so I’m going to have to put my phone down and just b r e a t h e and try to fall asleep AND YOU SHOULD TOO SLEEP IS GOOD FOR U. IT WILL HELP YOU SOLIDIFY YOUR MEMORIES. U WILL REMEMBER THE SHOW BETTER THAT WAY. Comfort your emotions